


Hoar Frost

by verus_janus (Methleigh)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-23
Updated: 2012-05-23
Packaged: 2017-11-05 21:02:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/410981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Methleigh/pseuds/verus_janus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Severus encounters the silvery frosty world of deep winter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hoar Frost

The first cold day of winter, the first really cold clear day after a cold clear night, was always a surprise. Severus would get ready for school, just like he always did. He would, however, wait in his bed as long as possible. And he would put on his clothes as fast as he could, having taken them into the bed with him during the night so they would not be cold. He would warm his fingers on the hot tea pot while his mother was out of the kitchen. And then, then, he would look out the kitchen window at the back garden, the few trees, and the field beyond.

It would be a pristine perfect land, glittering, white and even. The fences and trees would be thick with frost. The sky would be blue, the sun would be pale ice yellow, and everything else, everything would be white and silent. It would be quiet, without mar in the air or in the surface of the snow. And the light would almost seem to cut, as did the cold. Both were almost too brilliant, not to bear but to exist.

On his way to school he would touch the branches of the trees, pretending they were crystal formations of a new land which produced them as food and potions ingredients, anything he wanted. He would touch them when the only human feature of the landscape was his boot prints behind him, dragging because his shoes were to big. The looked soft like fur on approach, but when he observed them from a couple of inches away they seemed brittle as delicate slivers of glass. 

He would tentatively extend a bare finger to the frost to see if it would be sharp to cut him, or to see if it would be gentle as the coat was that of an elusive magical animal allowing him to pet it. The frost melted when he tentatively encountered it with his finger, warm from his mitten. It disappeared and was nothing. There was a little moisture left on his finger, and the tree was no longer perfect.

When Severus had first come to Malfoy Manor, he felt the same surprise to find his surroundings a sparkling wonderland. In the same way as that first cold clear day of winter, he should have recognised it. The Manor was pure white perfect; everything was iced with white: Abraxas' and Lucius' hair and robes, the walls and carpets, the furniture, the silver and crystal. Even the peacocks in the garden seemed as if they had been gilded with glittering white. 

Would it be soft and welcome him? Would it be so cold it hurt? Neither. It did not betray him; it did not coddle him nor cut him. It was real. He could trail his finger along the mantle. He could place his hand in Abraxas' live one in formal greeting. It was the fulfillment of the promise of his childhood vision.


End file.
